Obesity is a medical condition affecting more than 30% of the population in the United States. Obesity affects an individual's personal quality of life and contributes significantly to morbidity and mortality. Obese patients, i.e. individuals having a body mass index (“BMI”) greater than 30, often have a high risk of associated health problems (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, and respiratory insufficiency), including early death. With this in mind, and as those skilled in the art will certainly appreciate, the monetary and physical costs associated with obesity are substantial. In fact, it is estimated the costs relating to obesity are in excess of 100 billion dollars in the United States alone. Studies have shown that conservative treatment with diet and exercise alone may be ineffective for reducing excess body weight in many patients.
Bariatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with the control and treatment of obesity. A variety of surgical procedures have been developed within the bariatrics field to treat obesity. The most common currently performed procedure is the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB). This procedure is highly complex and is commonly utilized to treat people exhibiting morbid obesity. In a RYGB procedure a small stomach pouch is separated from the remainder of the gastric cavity and attached to a resectioned portion of the small intestine. This resectioned portion of the small intestine is connected between the “smaller” gastric cavity and a distal section of small intestine allowing the passage of food therebetween. The conventional RYGB procedure requires a great deal of operative time. Because of the degree of invasiveness, post-operative recovery can be quite lengthy and painful. Still more than 100,000 RYGB procedures are performed annually in the United States alone, costing significant health care dollars.
In view of the highly invasive nature of the RYGB procedure, other less invasive procedures have been developed. These procedures include gastric banding, which constricts the stomach to form an hourglass shape. This procedure restricts the amount of food that passes from one section of the stomach to the next, thereby inducing a feeling of satiety. A band is placed around the stomach near the junction of the stomach and esophagus. The small upper stomach pouch is filled quickly, and slowly empties through the narrow outlet to produce the feeling of satiety. In addition to surgical complications, patients undergoing a gastric banding procedure may suffer from esophageal injury, spleen injury, band slippage, reservoir deflation/leak, and persistent vomiting. Other forms of bariatric surgery that have been developed to treat obesity include Fobi pouch, bilio-pancreatic diversion and gastroplasty or “stomach stapling”.
Morbid obesity is defined as being greater than 100 pounds over one's ideal body weight. For individuals in this category, RYGB, gastric banding or another of the more complex procedures may be the recommended course of treatment due to the significant health problems and mortality risks facing the individual. However, there is a growing segment of the population in the United States and elsewhere who are overweight without being considered morbidly obese. These persons may be 20-30 pounds overweight and want to lose the weight, but have not been able to succeed through diet and exercise alone. For these individuals, the risks associated with the RYGB or other complex procedures often outweigh the potential health benefits and costs. Accordingly, treatment options should involve a less invasive, lower cost solution for weight loss.
It is known to create cavity wall plications though endoscopic only procedures. However, operating solely within the interior of the gastric cavity limits the plication depth that can be achieved without cutting. Furthermore, access and visibility within the gastric and peritoneal cavities is limited in a purely endoscopic procedure as the extent of the reduction increases.
With the foregoing in mind, it is desirable to have a surgical weight loss procedure that is inexpensive, with few potential complications, and that provides patients with a weight loss benefit while buying time for the lifestyle changes necessary to maintain the weight loss. Further, it is desirable that the procedure be minimally invasive to the patient, allowing for a quick recovery and less scaring. The present invention provides such a procedure.